JEARRARD'S HERBAL
7th August 2022
Hydrangea macrophylla 'Jofloma' .
It has been another dry and sunny week. The temperature has risen into the upper uncomfortables and the garden is drooping. I garden on a hill
and during the week I was certain that even the slope had wilted. Someone said to me "How nice to see some sunshine at last", I thought he was mad.
I am waiting for the rain, yearning for a tempest. I look out to the west hoping that the crackle of lightning will obscure the setting sun. I could live without
the lightning. It would be magnificent to awake to the honking horns of motorists as their cars were swept down the hill in the torrential floodwater.
It isn't likely to happen, the forecast for next week is dry. It's a very simple message, the poor weatherman has to fill a five minute slot on the evening news
expressing it.
Hydrangea macrophylla 'Jofloma' (you can spell it 'Yofloma' if you feel the urge, I can't find an authoritative statement) has bright yellow-green
leaves and in previous years it has wafted a flurry of delight into the heavy shade of summer. This year it is having to work very hard. It is still wafting away
in a florid flurry but the delight is rather forced. It has the bright smile of a marathon runner who has finished and is about to fall over.
7th August 2022
Pyrrosia hastata 'Hiryu' .
Pyrrosia hastata 'Hiryu' is holding on in a different way. A few years ago I bought a handful of Japanese forms of P. hasatata. I had the common glib confidence
of the Pyrrosia grower. I knew what I was doing. I potted them up, doted on them, tried to attend to their every whim and they demonstrated very clearly
that I didn't know what I was doing after all. We live and learn, the process is very slow. After a number of false starts two of them are doing well, two of them have died
(though I still water the pots in the hope of a miracle) and the fifth has two tiny leaves, hanging in the uncomfortable space between existence and oblivion. I look at it with calm encouragement
knowing that it's fate will depend more on its own determination than on my care.
The heat in the garden is causing a lot of stress and periodic wilting, but the Pyrrosia are in the greenhouse where it is warm and watered. Conditions should be ideal for a remarkable recovery.
Just beside it, P. hastata 'Hiryu' has recovered from a single leaf at its lowest ebb to a small cluster of leaves. I'm hoping that the juxtaposition will give the ailing fern
the will to live. Where there's fronds there's hope.
7th August 2022
Disa uniflora Yellow clone.1 .
Not far from the Pyrrosia in the greenhouse, the Disa have also been enjoying the warmth. It has been a good year for flowers in the sense that everything has come
at once, which is good news for a hybridist. It does mean that the season will be short, I doubt there will be any stragglers flowering into September and October
but that isn't a major loss. As an abstract idea, late Disa flowers seem wonderful, bringing the glowing radiance of summer into the shortening days of autumn.
In reality the effect is different. As the nights cool and condensation forms the flowers exude misery like wet sheep on a misty mountain. The Disa enjoy the summer,
perhaps it is best to leave it at that.
This is my original yellow flowered clone of D. uniflora , nowadays I call it 'clone.1' to distinguish it from the more vigorous 'clone.2'. It is a weak thing.
I had several attempts to establish it from sterile culture before a single plant survived. It grows very slowly, flowers very late and it almost infertile. I got a little
bit of seed last year but nothing has germinated. This year I have tried to cross the two yellow clones together. The first attempt failed, no pollination occurred.
I have one last chance this weekend, a final pair of open flowers. It is late in the season but the venture has a slight chance of success.
I would normally cross my fingers, but that will make pollination very difficult. Practicality will prevail.
7th August 2022
Impatiens flanaganae .
I don't have very good balance at the moment. The hot weather hasn't helped but it has highlighted the parts of the garden where I wobble the most. Parts that teeter on an uncertain edge.
Take begonias for example. There are an increasing number of recent introductions (wild collections and new cultivars) that could be hardy. I live in a mild garden, surely
this is the place to try them? The answer is probably not. It seems they like a hot summer if they are to survive the winter and a mild winter if they are to get through to
summer. Hot summers and mild winters are not a common climatic combination, this year is an exception. I have a reducing collection of begonias.
Impatiens tread a similar tightrope. There are a few that are hardy here and quite a lot that showed initial promise but are not. Impatiens flanaganae
straddles the gap between the two groups. It really should be hardy but I haven't managed to establish it. I haven't even seen it growing well anywhere else. It may be
that it has trouble living up to the hardy hyperbole.
This is my third attempt with the species. No cossetting this time, I bought a decent plant in spring that went straight into the garden to take its chances. It is unfortunate that it went
out in the dryest year for some time, but it has flowered (which is a first). If it survives then I am sure it will be magnificent in later years.
If it doesn't then I don't think I will be trying again.
I'm hoping for rain. It isn't in the forecast but this would be a really good time for the forecast to be wrong.